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Topic: Graphene - 1 atom thick (Read 529 times)

Now researchers at Columbia University have developed a way to contact 2-D graphene from its 1-D side.

"No other group has been able to successfully achieve a pure edge-contact geometry to 2-D materials such as graphene," said Columbia electrical engineering professor Ken Shepard in a press release. "This is an exciting new paradigm in materials engineering where instead of the conventional approach of layer by layer growth, hybrid materials can now be fabricated by mechanical assembly of constituent 2-D crystals."

Actually, the most immediate commercialize-able use would be further miniaturization of electronics, further reduction in power requirements for portable electronics, and decreased cost on flexible display technology.

But, like all research like this, it will be 5 years until commercial realization happens. And that line will be used for the next 10 years.

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"When we landed on the moon, that was the point where god should have come up and said 'hello'. Because if you invent some creatures, put them on the blue one and they make it to the grey one, you f**king turn up and say 'well done'."

I feel like 5 years is a little pessimistic... Graphene is really streamlining (from what ive seen). it was discovered in 2004, honestly, its a BIG deal, at least when it comes to money.. better, smaller, higher quality electronics are sought after every day, consumerism 101, who ever gets cheap graphene first gets the money first.... the race already started. who ever comes out on top, with the smartest patents will control electronics for the next 10 years... if not longer

I feel like 5 years is a little pessimistic... Graphene is really streamlining (from what ive seen). it was discovered in 2004, honestly, its a BIG deal, at least when it comes to money.. better, smaller, higher quality electronics are sought after every day, consumerism 101, who ever gets cheap graphene first gets the money first.... the race already started. who ever comes out on top, with the smartest patents will control electronics for the next 10 years... if not longer

I say such things somewhat facetiously - it's just that I've seen way too many times the 'next big breakthrough' that seems to take forever to actually be realized in the commercial space. For example, non-volatile universal memories is one of those. I've been been reading about various technologies such as MRAM for the better part of 15 years, and only recently (the past 3 years maybe?) have I seen realistic commercial implementations (in this case, FeRAM), and even then it's in very niche markets.

And don't get me started on fuel cells.

But the point is - there is always a large gap between "we've got this working in a lab" and "this is now present in millions of devices". The 5 year schtick is just that - a schtick. It may very well proceed much faster than that; it may very well be that other discoveries will supersede the benefits of this technology and process; it may very well take 15 years for this to prove viable.

I do not know, but I know enough to not get overly excited that I'll see anything awesome with this process come out tomorrow. That's all.

Welcome aboard to WWGHA BTW.

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"When we landed on the moon, that was the point where god should have come up and said 'hello'. Because if you invent some creatures, put them on the blue one and they make it to the grey one, you f**king turn up and say 'well done'."